What I Can Never Have
by StarFlight13
Summary: Everyone is tired of Zeus's terrible reign, so after the Giant War a new king is needed. And who better than the hero Percy Jackson. But Zeus cursed him with his dying breath. Twelve years later, Ben and Cass Chase-Jackson live with their mom Annabeth in Alaska, until one day teachers start turning into monsters, their mom is a pro with a knife and how is this related to their dad?
1. Prologue 1: A New King

Prologue 1: A New King

They were tired. It was a long battle, and a hard one. The Giants were dead, Gaia was dead, but far too many demigods had also lost their lives.

They could hardly believe it was a win.

And here they were, the fated seven, along with all their friends and allies, standing in the throne room of Olympus and watching tiredly as the mighty Olympians continued to argue.

"This is a triumph for the gods!" Zeus boomed. "We have led the heroes to victory! Victory against Gaia herself, despite my wife's meddling."

"My meddling just saved us all you idiot," Hera snapped at her husband. "If you were any more thick I might prefer to go and bed Heracles."

And there was the first sign. Hera was many things. She hated heroes, she was spiteful and not always a good parent. She would trick and plot against Zeus, scream and shout at him, but in the end she held to her vows of marriage, and would never evenconsider  
cheating on him, despite all the times she had caught him with mortals.

Zeus grew angry quickly. "Had you not interfered, none of this would have happened! All the blame lies on you for switching those two."

"We have names you know," Percy semi-angrily stated. He really was too tired for anything more.

Zeus waved him off. "You pitted the Romans and Greeks against each other. It could've ended in a bloodbath."

"It was Apollo," Hera blamed. "Apollo helped the Roman general to wage war."

"Octavian," Jason corrected half-heartedly.

"Apollo, is this true?" Zeus asked.

Apollo nodded dejectedly, thinking of his dead sons, daughters and legacies, including Octavian.

"Apollo! This is a great fault of yours," Zeus told him. "You should be stripped of your godhood to make amends for starting this war!"

Apollo's head shot up. " _What?!_ "

There was a huge noise of protest from the assembled gods and demigods, some of outrage, fear or calling Zeus out on his hypocrisy.

"ENOUGH!" Zeus shouted, lightning crackling at his fingertips. "My decision is final!"

"Perhaps it shouldn't be," Athena interceded, to a round of murmurs and whispers among the crowd. That was the second sign. Athena was a brilliant strategist, always correcting everyone and making everything around her better, but she never, _never_ ,  
outwardly defied her father. Her loyalty was too strong for that.

"How dare you!" Zeus cried. "You dare defy me, your king!"

Reyna stepped forwards, purple cloak snapping and her two dogs at her side. "With respect, Lord Jupiter, we are tired and we wish to grieve in peace. Please, may we draw this meeting to its conclusion."

Zeus gripped his head as his form flickered for a second. "Use my Greek form, please. I'm not in the mood for headaches. And besides, we have yet to even start celebrating!" Zeus said, to shocked muttering. "Let us feast for this great victory."

And then came the final sign.

"How can you say that!" Aphrodite hissed at him. Her makeup was gone, her hair was tied back in a ponytail and she looked more naturally beautiful than ever before, were it not for the emptiness in her eyes, "Three of my children from Camp Half-Blooare  
dead, _King Zeus_ , as well as five of my children from Camp Jupiter and seventeen of my legacies. Some of their ancestors were alive two _thousand_ years ago, so don't you, not even for one second, _dare_ celebrate."

Aphrodite, the most composed and uncaring god of them all, was snarling at Zeus.

"Be silent! The demigods died, but that is their purpose," Zeus argued. "They died in battle for us, the mighty gods. What better deaths do they want? Is it not so, Ares?"

Ares silently looked up, and with a tiny motion, shook his head.

Zeus looked shocked. "Wha-? Hera and Apollo, you started this war! You disobeyed my orders to not interfere-"

Percy stepped forwards, limping slightly from a cut on his leg. "Let's be honest Zeus, you are the one who encouraged this war."

"How dare you! I-"

"You locked Olympus down when it became obvious that it was time to unite Greek and Roman," he continued stoically. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Hera was right to ignore your orders. At least she tried to unite Greek and Roman, and she succeededtoo."

"Then all is Apollo's fault for encouraging the seer to attack your camp-"

"Don't be a hypocrite Zeus," Percy snapped. "You make foolish mistakes all the time and never get punished for it, whilst punishing the other gods for the same things you have done."

"I agree," Poseidon said. "You are not a good king, brother."

"That's unfair!" Zeus exclaimed. "You can't vote because you'll be biased and vote for your son!"

"The same way you were biased and put all of your children on the Olympian council?" Hades asked darkly.

"They deserved it!"

"So do Triton, Rhode, Kymopoleia and Benthesikyme," Poseidon argued. "You refused me at every turn!"

"I've told you a thousand times, they're not important enough!" Zeus roared.

"What makes Dionysus better than Kymopoleia?" Poseidon roared back. "She controls hundreds of merchant ships who get wrecked! All Dionysus can do is get drunk!"

"They're just minor gods, Poseidon," Zeus told him. "They're still part of your domain."

"Then what about my children, Zeus?" Hades asked. "Why isn't Thanatos on the council. I would say that death is pretty important, wouldn't you agree?"

Hades watched in amusement as Zeus fumbled for words, before eventually spitting out, "I am the king of the gods! It is not your place to question me!"

"I thought that was exactly their place, considering this is a council," Percy said bitingly. "You know Zeus, you really have very little grip on how this is supposed to work."

"Be silent!" Zeus roared, raising his lightning bolt. "A mere demigod shall not tell me how to rule! I would smite you into the ground if you hadn't just saved Olympus. I might still do it if you're not _very_ careful, _demigod_!"

"But what if he wasn't?" Artemis asked. She had been cleaning knives and not concentrating up until now.

"What if he wasn't what?" Poseidon asked worriedly.

"A mortal," Artemis answered. "What if he was a blessed mortal? We obviously need a new king and by the laws that we placed down to prevent another Titan monarchy, we gods cannot challenge the reigning king. But a blessed demigod on the other hand..."

"What are you planning?" Zeus roared. "You cannot throw out your king!"

Percy stepped forwards again, having not really cottoned on to what the gods were suggesting. "Perhaps it's time for a new king of the gods."

"You cannot replace me, especially not with a weak, pathetic son of Poseidon!"

"That son of Poseidon has saved you more times than you can count!" Annabeth shouted, stepping forwards by Percy's side, to a round of cheering from the assembled demigods.

Percy smiled gratefully at her. "I love you Wise Girl."

Annabeth grinned. "I know, Seaweed Brain."

"And I can't leave you," Percy finished. "I don't want to be a god. I refuse to be a god."

"And that's how it should be!" Zeus agreed. "Your brat doesn't want to be a god, Poseidon, so why are you forcing him? He obviously wants to stay with his _girlfriend_. And you know no other demigods are powerful enough."

Annabeth didn't miss the slightly crestfallen look on Jason's face that was quickly replaced by righteous anger.

"Percy," Poseidon pleaded. "We cannot put up with Zeus any longer!"

"And you know that even if one of us could take up the throne we'd eventually become like him," Athena added.

"You're the most disgustingly noble punk I've ever met," Ares finished with a sneer.

"But I don't want to become a god," Percy argued.

And then, out of the hearth stepped Hestia, taking the form of an eight-year old child. She walked up to Percy and placed her hand on his shoulder. "And that is why you will be such a great god, Percy," she told him.

A warm feeling started spreading from the place she was touching him. "What are you doing?" Percy asked, panicking slightly. "Let go! Stop it!"

Hestia glowed as her form became more concentrated. "Demigods, I suggest you leave."

All around, the other gods were powering up too, except Zeus who was shouting at everyone to stop.

Annabeth was the first to realise what they were doing. "Everyone, out the throne room!" She screamed. "All the godly energy will incinerate us, even if we covered our eyes!"

There was a panicked scramble for the door as the demigods ran out to escape the onslaught of godly magic. Now each of the gods (except Zeus) were holding out their hands and firing a beam of light at Hestia who was feeding it into Percy. Annabeth wasthe  
only one to remain, staying closely next to the door.

Percy was burning up. He could feel each of the gods power flowing into him. The cool, metallic feel of Artemis right next to the brutal, raging monstrosity that was Ares. Distantly, he could still hear Zeus screaming at the gods to stop, but the rest  
ofthe gods ignored him. Then, _boom!_

The flow of power was abruptly cut off as Zeus raised him master bolt and fired straight at Hestia. But Annabeth was directly behind her. They were sent flying into the walls of the throne room, where they landed in a heap, burned and blackened.

"No!" Percy called, trying to move towards her, but her magic was still holding him in place. "Annabeth! Hestia!"

"You imbecilic demigod!" Zeus called. "Be glad your girlfriend is dead, it means I don't have to punish her too."

Percy looked back at Zeus with fire raging in his eyes. "How dare you. How _dare_ you."

"I am the king. I am all-powerful!"

Percy closed his eyes to calm down, and when he opened them they burnt with black fire. "You, Zeus, are unfit to rule the gods. You have ruled for far too long. Now you must be replaced."

Percy, as if in a trance, raised his hand and fired a beam of blue-white light straight at Zeus who deflected it with his master bolt. Then he started growing to full godly size, squaring up to the king of the gods.

"You cannot defeat me!" Zeus hollered. "No matter how much you are blessed, the process was interrupted, you will never be powerful enough."

"You hurt Annabeth," Percy told him, disturbingly calm. "No one hurts my Wise Girl."

He launched himself at Zeus, slashing and stabbing with Riptide. Zeus deflected them with his bolt but was put on the defensive. As Percy slashed, Zeus came us close and lunged for his neck, and Percy savagely punched him in the face. It had obviouslybeen  
a while since Zeushad been in any sort of fight.

Zeus fired his bolt again and Percy was launched across the room, banging his head on one of the columns by Athena's throne and shrinking down to his normal size. Athena looked down at him with a steely cold gaze and Percy determinedly hauled himselfto  
his feet. Zeus shrank to match his size and approached. Percy hurled himself at him again and landed a few blows, before detaching himself and panting heavily

Zeus grinned as godly ichor spilled from a cut on his face, already healing. "You can't defeat me, _brat._ No matter how blessed you are, I am still a god, and you are merely human."

Percy snarled and leaped back at Zeus. He put up a good fight, but he was still woozy from the pain of the blessing and the transfer of the gods' powers. In the background he could see Apollo creeping over to Hestia and Annabeth and healing them as faras  
he could with nectar and songs. Hestia was already getting up, burns fading, but Annabeth was unresponsive, laying in the recovery position while Apollo tried to heal her burns.

The fight between Zeus and Percy raged on while the other gods watched impassively. Sometimes Percy looked like he was winning, but Zeus always regained the upper hand and knocked him down again, until Percy dragged himself to his feet and continued thefight.

And then Percy didn't get up again. He lay on the ground, shaking arms bracing himself on the cold floor.

Zeus smiled cruelly. "You see, demigod. I am far more powerful than you!"

He landed a vicious kick on Percy's ribs and an audible crack echoed around the room. He landed another and another, in the face, on the chest in a surely painful display of superiority. Percy looked up. His face was smeared with blood.

Gold blood.

But he was too tired to get up, despite his wounds already healing. Zeus brought his lightning bolt back behind his head, ready to make the final blow. Percy scrambled to get up, panting and gasping as his ribs cracked back in place, ready to defend himselfagainst  
the full force of the master bolt-

But it never came. Zeus stumbled and almost slumped on the ground, clutching his head. Annabeth was standing behind him, healing third-degree burns causing her obvious pain, holding her dagger where she had just knocked him hard on the head with the buttof  
it.

She rushed to Percy's side and painfully helped him up. "You alright?" She asked.

Percy gaped at her. "You were hit by Zeus's lightning. You should be dead."

Annabeth smiled with a wince. "Did you really think I would leave you so easily Seaweed Brain?"

Percy smiled, rejuvenated, and relaxed as she kissed him and helped him to his feet. "I should never doubt you, Wise Girl. I love you."

Annabeth handed him Riptide from where it was lying on the floor. "I can't stay. Give him hell, Seaweed Brain."

"For you," Percy replied, watching as she limped out of the throne room.

Percy turned back to the fight. Zeus was standing at the other end of the hall in full god form, blinding light shining all over the place. He raised his master bolt once more. Percy stood up straight, power radiating from him in waves.

Zeus roared and the bolt came flying at him. The light dimmed and the gods looked on with awe and pride in their eyes as Percy held aloft the bolt. He had caught it. He spun it around in one smooth motion and threw it back at Zeus.

"No," Zeus whispered in denial. "No! NOOOOOOOO!"

With a bang the bolt hit its owner and exploded into a bright white light that even Percy had to shield his eyes from. When the light faded, the bolt had gone - destroyed presumably - and Zeus lay, battered and fading in a crater.

"You worthless demigod," Zeus rasped. "So you have defeated me with my own weapon." He let out a mirthless laugh before settling on an expression of bitter rage. "Perhaps you will be king of the gods now, o' _noble_ , _righteous_  
like my predecessors, I curse you. Hear me!I curse you Perseus Jackson!"

With a burst of golden and blue light, Zeus disintegrated into nothing, leaving only a crater and a charred scar on the throne room floor.

" _It is done_ ," a voice hissed from behind Percy. Sitting there in their knitting stand were the three fates. On the left sat Clotho, spinning away on an old fashioned spinning wheel, in the middle sat Lachesis, measuring it out in long and shortlengths,  
and on the end sat Atropos, holding a long gold and blue thread cut directly in the middle.

" _It is about time Zeus came to an end_ ," she hissed, as the thread disappeared into the same gold and blue light that Zeus had. " _And we could not have chosen a better successor_."

Clotho held out a newly spun thread of sea-green and gold. " _You are destined to become king, son of Poseidon, and become king you shall._ "

The three fates held out their hands and Percy was wrapped in light. " _Hail Perseus, king of the Olympians, patron of all great heroes, god of loyalty, faith, swordsmanship and time, overseer of all of Zeus's domains!_ "

"Hail!" cried the Olympians as one, standing from their thrones and kneeling before their new king.

Percy looked on, not quite comprehending. Zeus's throne was changing to something more his style, and he could feel the remaining mortal blood burning out of his body and becoming ichor.

Lachesis, who was still measuring thread, looked at Percy with calculating eyes. " _Very soon a mortal archaeologist will discover a sacred Ancient Greek ruin, inside which will be the hidden story of your victory. Then all shall know the true king of the gods._ "

Percy's shining eyes focussed for a brief second on her, before glazing over and he slumped unconscious to the ground.

* * *

 _Many thousands of miles away_ :

"What is it Dad?" A boy asked his father as they came to a stop in front of an altar.

The father was wide-eyed. "Most people would call it the thing that will make them go down in history." He stepped forward and gingerly wiped with a delicate brush the dust off the front cover. "Personally I think it's the most ironic thing that everhappened  
to the Kane family."

* * *

 **A/N: pls comment, would be rlly helpful, thx for taking the time to read this! Also posted on wattpad under the name Into_Dreams along with my other original story** ** _Secrets of the Mountain Slopes_** **, a fantasy tale.**

 _ **Edited 2 July 2017. Thanks to Juusan13 for pointing out the mistakes, sry I didn't read it through after I copied it onto here from Wattpad.**_


	2. Prologue 2: The Curse

When Percy awoke, the first thing he saw was Annabeth.

She looked down at him with a soft smile. "You drool in your sleep."

Percy croaked out a laugh. "Only- only for you, Wise Girl."

They sat in silence for a moment.

Percy broke the silence. "Where am I?"

"The healing wings on Mount Olympus," Annabeth answered. "Everyone else was sent back to Camp Half-Blood, but I kicked up a fight. Plus Apollo wanted to keep me under observation. He was worried about the effect of being near all those godly auras."

"You're okay, aren't you?" Percy asked worriedly. "You were hit by the master bolt, you could've _died."_

"Hestia absorbed most of the hit, and she's a god, so she's fine," Annabeth answered, wincing. "I'm mostly fine Seaweed Brain, just a few healing burns."

"And the godly auras?"

Annabeth shrugged. "Apollo wasn't sure what the result of that could be. Maybe I'll live longer than an average human. Maybe I'll develop quick healing. We just don't know which of the god's powers I soaked up. What we do know is that because I wasn'tblessed  
or immortal, whatever it is will probably cause me immense pain."

Percy frowned at her matter-of-fact tone and looked at her worriedly. "Are you sure you're okay? I can call Apollo in, he could help you. Or Hestia! Maybe she could bless you so you'll be fine-"

"It's sweet of you to worry," Annabeth told him. "But worry about yourself first."

"What do you mean?"

Annabeth bit her lip and looked to the side. "The gods...sent me in to break it to you gently."

"Break what? Annabeth, you're scaring me, what's wrong?"

"After you defeated Zeus," Annabeth started, "you were visited by the Fates, so you remember?"

"Hazy details," Percy frowned.

"But you passed out from the exhaustion of the fight, right?"

"Yeah, I remember that. You knocked him over with your dagger and helped me up."

Annabeth paused for a second. "There's a law that the Fates put into place after the gods came to rule Olympus. Anyone who challenges and kills the king will become king in their place."

Percy stared at her, uncomprehending.

"You're the king of the gods, Percy," Annabeth told him, voice breaking. "You're immortal."

Percy looked at her, emotion filling his face. "I'm- I'm a god now? I'll outlive you?"

Annabeth nodded sorrowfully.

Percy looked from side to side, clearly panicking. "I'll fix it, I'll become mortal again, we can settle down, start a family, I'll figure it out. Maybe Hecate can reverse it-"

"No one can reverse it," Annabeth interrupted.

There was a thud from behind them as Apollo entered, carrying a bag of...something.

"Annabeth, you should be in bed, resting," he scolded. "You're only mortal, I can't perform too many healing hymns in one night."

"Apollo," Percy croaked. "Is she okay?"

"You could just ask me," Annabeth snapped fondly.

"I need confirmation," Percy replied. "Will she be back to normal again?"

Apollo shrugged and went about tucking the medical equipment away with his head down. "The burns from the lightning are almost completely healing. She might have some scarring, but it'll fade in time."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Told you Seaweed Brain, I'm fine."

Apollo straightened up. "Although, I think it's about time for another hymn, so come and lie down Annabeth."

Annabeth got up with a wince and an exasperated expression. She limped over and lay down on the bed by Percy's while Apollo came and stood over her. He started to hum.

"This should cool your burns and heal them almost completely," he said in-between hums. Then he started. It was a song in Ancient Greek about two lovers being separated but vowing to find each other again.

Percy only caught a few lines: ' _As sure as the sun in the sky, or the flowers in the earth, I'll find you my love, and even Hades cannot bar the way.'_ Loosely translated. It was beautifully haunting, and by the end Percy had tears in hiseyes.

When Apollo finished he turned to Percy, fidgeting and slightly unsure of his footing. "You two need to go down to Camp Half-Blood to reassure everyone you're safe. Don't worry my Lord, you aren't yet fully a god, so your true form won't burn up all thedemigods,  
but once you return we will finish the blessing. But this night is for the two of you. Have fun, my lord."

Apollo left quickly. Annabeth turned to Percy, he looked pale and shaken.

"What's wrong," Annabeth asked. "Percy, what's wrong?"

Percy turned to her. "Apollo called me his lord. A god. Why?"

"The gods are unsure of how to address you," Annabeth explained. "You're a demigod turned god, and most of them have treated you badly in the past, so now you have power over them, they want to get on your good side."

Percy chuckled. "It's just a bit strange, that's all."

Annabeth cocked her head. "That's not all, is it. Percy, tell me what's the matter."

"You can always see through me," Percy chuckled. "That poem Apollo sang, it hit a bit close to home."

"Seaweed Brain," Annabeth crooned softly. "I would never leave you. And if I couldn't find you, not even death could stop me searching."

"I love you Wise Girl."

"I love you Seaweed Brain."

And what a night they had.

-–-

The next day, the two of them travelled down to Camp Half-Blood with Hestia by pegasus. As soon as they touched down they were swarmed by people with questions. The rest of the Seven were at the front of the crowd, along with Nico, Thalia, Reyna and Grover,clamouring  
as the horses' hooves touched the ground.

"Guys!" Percy greeted enthusiastically.

"Perrr-cy!" Grover shouted, rushing forward and knocking him down in a hug. "Where were you?"

"Yeah Prissy, where were you?" Clarisse called from the back, voice carrying over everyone else's.

"Bro, I was worried," Jason added.

"We're just glad you're safe," Hazel finished. "At least we haven't lost anyone." _Else._ The word hung in the air like a sorrowful blanket. She dipped her head and looked at the ground. Nico put his hand on her shoulder and glared at Frank whenhe  
moved to do the same until he backed away.

"Hazel, I didn't feel Leo's soul entering the underworld. He is alive," Nico soothed.

"I know. But he still hasn't come back."

Piper put her arm around Hazel to Frank's frustration. "We can ask the gods to find him. They won't turn Percy down, right?"

Percy shifted awkwardly under all their gazes. "Yeah, about that..."

Annabeth put a hand on his arm. "Senior campers and cabin leaders meeting in the Big House." She turned back to Percy and looked up at a ledge some way above them. Percy followed her gaze. "I think Rachel wants to talk to you."

"What? And you're fine with that?" Percy asked disbelievingly.

Annabeth smirked a little. "She won't break her oath. Especially not with the king of the gods. Plus that saves you trying to explain the intricacies of your godhood to the campers. Like Clarisse."

Percy shuddered. "Hate to think how she'll take it." He looked back at Annabeth lovingly and kissed her gently. "Thanks Wise Girl. I love you."

"I know you do," Annabeth replied with a gentle smile. "Now go see what the oracle wants."

Percy detached himself and jogged off, leaving Annabeth expertly controlling the crowd.

"Percy," Rachel greeted as Percy jogged up.

"Hey," Percy replied. "How are you?"

Rachel stared at him scrutinisingly with an unreadable expression. "I am very well, My Lord."

"Could've guessed you already knew," Percy said with a small nervous laugh. "But seriously, you've known me for years, don't start going all Apollo on me. Though he is your patron so I guess I can see where you got it from."

Rachel's face remained impassive. "Come with me, Percy."

Percy followed her into her cave, growing more and more uneasy. "So, uh, what exactly am I doing here?" He asked into the pitch darkness.

"Waiting until I find the light switch," Rachel replied with some degree of amusement. "Ah, here it is."

The cave lit up. Paintings and sketches were everywhere. Percy bent down and picked up a discarded sketch of the demigods in the throne room facing the gods. He looked up and saw on the walls of the cave a series of paintings detailing the fight withZeus  
from when the gods started blessing him, up to when he fainted in front of the Fates, almost like a comic strip, except all the captions were in Ancient Greek.

"Wha-...?"

"I saw your fight with Zeus," Rachel told him. "And I also saw the future."

Percy's head snapped to her. "What happens? Will Annabeth be okay?"

Rachel shrugged. "This is more important."

"What could possibly be more important than Annabeth?" Percy asked angrily.

Rachel gazed at him with sorrowful eyes. "Your children."

Percy blinked rapidly. "My _what?_ "

Rachel guided Percy to a stool and sat opposite him. "Percy, I know this is hard to take in, but Annabeth is pregnant."

Percy's face went slack as he started breathing irregularly. "Whaa-"

Rachel out his hand on his back. "Put your head in-between your knees, just _breathe._ In, out, in, out. Relax. There you go. Better now?"

Percy looked at her, eyes wide. "NO! How can I possibly be alright? She's...I can't...I don't know..."

Rachel smiled sadly at him. "That's not even the worst part. You know Zeus cursed you, don't you."

With glazed eyes, he nodded.

Rachel bit her lip. "Percy, he cursed you to the life you despise."

"What do you mean?"

Rachel turned to the corner of the cave where there was an easel covered by a blue cloth. She turned the easel towards Percy and took it off. He gasped in horror. There was a detailed painting of Annabeth, heavily pregnant with her face contorted in painas  
Percy was fired back from touching her belly.

"The life you hate, Percy," Rachel told him. "Your demigod children will not know of the world of gods and monsters, but if you ever interact with them, they will be cursed to the life of a hero. Like you."

Percy was so pale he looked like he would faint. "So I can't talk to them. I can't show them I care?"

"Well, you can, but then they would have to learn how to fight, how to defend themselves and they would have to move to Camp Half-Blood year-round, because any child of yours will be extraordinarily powerful."

Percy backed away. "I- I've got t- to tell Annabeth... I've got to tell her now!"

He ran out of the cave as Rachel sadly covered the paintings up with large cloths and took them off her easels. She stacked them up and moved them to a pile at the back of the cave and set a new easel up, brushes out and ready to paint.

Percy burst in on what seemed to be the end of Annabeth's explanation, judging by her satisfied expression and the looks of understanding on her audience's faces. They started in surprise as Percy grabbed Annabeth by the hand and pulled her out, shoutingto  
the crowd that they just needed a quick talk.

"Prissy hasn't changed a bit," Clarisse snorted, inspecting the edge of a dagger she was sharpening.

"What are you doing?" Annabeth asked as Percy pulled her into an empty room. It was covered in vines and had a fireplace and a Pac-Man machine.

"Is it possible that this place got even _more_ covered in vines since Mr D was called back to Olympus? And what's with the leopard head?"

The leopard head snarled.

"Oh that's Seymour," Annabeth answered. "Mr D found him and put life in him because he was sorry for him." She tossed him a snausage.

"But where does it go-"

"Don't ask that!" Annabeth hastily replied. "Anyway, what are you doing here."

With a shaky breath, Percy explained everything. How she was pregnant, the curse, what would happen if he ever saw their children... By the end they were both sitting curled up in the middle of the floor, crying their hearts out.

They looked up as Chiron clip-clipped in and folded his legs beneath him to sit down. "If I may make a suggestion."

"G- go ahead, Ch- Chiron," Percy sobbed.

"I know of a place, far away in Alaska..."

By the end of his speech, the two new parents looked at each other, and, with a slight trepidation, answered; "Yes."

* * *

 **A/N: So, what do you think? I'll get on with the new chapter ASAP. Pls tell me your opinions, any and all comments appreciated, corrections and constructive criticism welcome! Thanks to the people who encourage me to write faster, it really moves me along!**

 **Next Chapter: Ben and Cass, twins living in Alaska with their mom. What will happen?**

 **Find me on Wattpadunder the name Into_Dreams, where this is originally written.**


	3. Ben and Cass

3\. Ben and Cass

Their town was small by anyone's standards, nestled at the foot of a mountain next to a lake that reflected the skyline as clearly as a a mirror. The town was modern, but in a rustic, fisherman sort of way, with boats docked up on the pier while glass buildings shone from amongst small wood panelled houses. It was the perfect blend of new and old. And it was theirs.

Well, sort of.

They had always viewed it as theirs, because their mom had designed most of the modern buildings and had been offered the mayorship while she was pregnant with them, so in a way, it could've been their village. Cass still gave her a hard time about it. Why on Earth she had decided to move into the house miles away from any sort of human contact they didn't know. Sure, it was quite pretty, rather big and sometimes if you looked at it right it rippled like smooth cloth, but it made interaction with friends so much harder.

"An old friend gave it to me," she would say every time they asked her.

Ben would frown. "They just gave it to you? Wouldn't a house like this be very expensive?"

A sparkle would come into their mom's eyes as she ran her hand over the smooth architecture. "One of my long-dead relatives made this house. All of our branch of the family can inherit it if we need it."

And that would always prompt a story. Their mom's stories were amazing, envy of all the other parents. She had told a hundred different tales of her childhood and there always seemed to be more. And then she would tell stories of heroes fighting monsters and finding love after doing ridiculously dangerous things.

But that would lead to asking about their dad.

There was a picture of him. At least, they had decided that it was him, sitting next to their mom on the beach, frozen in a joyful laugh. The picture was in a bronze and gold frame on their mom's work table in her private work room, fondly cleaned and used to hold down sheets of blueprints. They'd only seen it once, but they'd never forgotten it.

"It's so the important papers don't blow away," she claimed. They didn't believe her. She looked with such love at the smiling face that they knew she just liked looking up from work and seeing him. "But he was wonderful."

"Why did he leave then?" Cass would ask accusingly. "Why didn't he stay if you loved each other so much?"

A small, sad smile. "Under the circumstances of your birth we thought it better to stay far away from each other."

"What circumstances?" Ben asked.

And then the subject was changed. Every time. "Have I told you the story of when I met a shoeless boy, a beautiful girl and their crazy friend on a bridge over the Grand Canyon? That was a strange day..."

But the twins would fall into it because it was obvious how raw the emotion was within their mother, and anyway, that story promised to be a good one.

But their favourite story was the one of Perseus. Their mom told them all about the legendary hero discovered by archaeologists just over a decade ago. It was the first and favourite story they had ever heard.

It was still their favourite story twelve years later.

"Cass, you idiot! You put your red shirt in with my whites! Now they're pink!"

"Well it's your fault for dumping your clothes in my pile, Ben."

"There's only one pile! We share a pile of laundry!"

"Well, figure out a solution with that big fat brain of yours. Like, oh I don't know, doing your own laundry."

"I hate you."

"I know."

"I'm telling mom. She won't make you cookies."

Cass sat up straight. "If you do that I'll paint over the spines of your books."

"If you do that then you still won't get cookies!"

Ah. Siblings. So refreshing. Twelve years of age and still acting like toddlers.

"You'll be late for school!" their mom yelled from downstairs.

"Coming!" they yelled back in unison with matching scowls.

"Oh, Cass," their mom said as soon as she saw their grumpy expressions. "Did you put your brother's tops in with yours again. And it's only Monday. Can't you at least wait until the end of the week to torment each other?"

"I knew you did it on purpose!" Ben told his sister triumphantly.

"Yeah? Well I'm older than you," Cass replied. That was her answer to everything.

"Only by two minutes!"

Their mom came by with two plates of burnt toast in one hand and a notebook covered in complicated math equations in the other. "Toast. Eat up."

They ate up. It was rare their mother ever cooked anything for them, because Zack, the guy who came around to tidy up and sometimes babysit, proved to be an excellent chef, so more often than not also ended up cooking meals while their mom relaxed and took a break from her never-ending work. The latest of which seemed to be designing a huge mansion, obviously designed to house someone very rich, but apparently extremely picky about everything.

And then their mom loaded up her bulky briefcase of paper, herded them into the car and drove them off to school.

As per their normal routine.

Their school was miles away down the mountain, through a thick pine forest and on the other side of town, so the journey often took a while, and was usually travelled either in complete silence or in obnoxiously loud voices. Today was a sulky silence day.

And then they arrived, got out the car, their mom waved goodbye and headed off to work, leaving Ben and Cass to wander down to their classroom. They took a seat, amongst the last to arrive as usual and didn't have to wait long for Mr Simmons to slink in and start terrorising the students.

No-one liked Mr Simmons, the English teacher. He was tall and stringy, and he always seemed to be searching for something. He spoke in a low hiss that always seemed to echo wherever he was, and loved ripping apart essays when it looked like students had lost concentration (which was often considering Cass had ADHD and Ben had both ADHD and dyslexia).

The room went quiet as he banged in, surveying the class through his wire spectacles, before sitting down at his desk and starting to tick off names of the students who were here. He had reached the end when he looked up with a hungry expression. "We have a new girl. Would she like to step forwards please?"

Everyone turned around to stare at her, shifting awkwardly from side to side in her seat. She was wearing a green headscarf and glancing from side to side nervously. She walked forward with a slight limp to stand at the front, though she seemed to stand as far away from Mr Simmons as she could.

"Tell us a bit about yourself," Mr Simmons ordered, staring intently at her.

The girl licked her lips. "My name is Ilana Lawn. I'm twelve years old and I have chronic parenthesis in my legs so I'm permanently off sport." She glanced nervously at Mr Simmons who gestured at her to go on. "I love being outside, but I'm nervous about moving to Alaska because it's so far away from my home."

"And where did you live before?" Mr Simmons asked.

"I lived near Yellowstone National Park with my mom and dad, but then I decided I wanted to get involved with the family business."

A gleam came into Mr Simmons' eye. "And what business would that be?"

She hesitated. "Nature conservation, sir," Ilana answered.

"And-" Mr Simmons sat forwards in his chair. "-Is there a religious reason you are wearing that headscarf?"

Ilana shook her head.

"Then I will have to confiscate it as headgear is against the school policy."

Cass glanced questioningly at Ben. He just shrugged cluelessly.

Ilana looked horrified. "But-"

"No 'buts'. Hand it over."

Very reluctantly, Ilana unwound the scarf from her head and handed it over to Mr Simmons, who doubled in glee as she hung her head.

Cass blinked.

There were horns growing on her head. Small ones, barely a stump, but definitely real.

"Can you see that?" Cass whispered to Frankie, her friend.

"See what?" Frankie asked. "Are you talking about her hair? It's a bit messy but..."

Cass frowned. Ilana's hair was slick and shiny, not a mess. Could no-one else see it?

She limped quickly back to her desk, sitting down just as the bell rang and everyone rushed off to their next lessons, leaving her to blindly follow her guide, Anne Scully, around with a perpetually confused and scared expression, especially since Anne didn't even glance at her once.

The day passed considerably normally. At lunch Cass sat with Frankie alone, as their two other friends had been taken down with the flu. Cass looked enviously over at Ben, who was surrounded by a group of laughing boys. Ben was quite scrawny, but tall for his age, and intelligent. Cass had been worried that he would be bullied, but his easygoing nature made him popular very quickly.

"Have you seen Ilana?" Cass asked.

"No," Frankie answered. "Why?"

"I wanted to see if she'd sit next to us, since she's new and doesn't have any friends."

"Maybe she knows someone already and is with them," Frankie suggested, picking at her food.

"Well, she was following Anne Scully around," Cass told her with a disgusted glance in the direction at Anne's table. "But not anymore."

Frankie shrugged. "Good for her. No-one with half a brain should sit with Anne."

Anne Scully was the school bully. She only had two friends and nobody liked her or them, but she still thought she was the most popular girl in the school. Her egotism and obliviousness was only cancelled out by Don Prince in the year above, the biggest pig you'll ever meet.

"I'm worried," Cass said. "Maybe she got lost?"

"She's fine, I saw her taking her going outside, probably to eat in the fresh air. Hey, have you heard the news-"

And with a disgruntled look, Cass dropped that conversation. Although as she was leaving the mess hall she did see Ilana sitting in the bushes and talking to herself. Strange.

History was the last lesson of the day. By that time the already drowsy teacher Mr Stuart was half asleep and just told them to get on with an essay about the East India Trading Company. Boring as hell but at least they could talk. Unfortunately, Ilana was late from lunch and the only seat was next to Ben.

"Hey," he greeted. "I like what you've done with your hair."

"Thanks," she answered, self-consciously touching the pigtails she'd put her hair in and sat down next to him.

Ben reached for his pen and a glimmer of metal caught the light.

"What's that?" Ilana asked.

"Oh, this?" Ben held up his wrist to show off a bronze and gold bracelet attached to twelve charms. "D'ya wanna have a look? I can take it off-"

"No!" Ilana stopped him. "I can see it from here. Where did you get it?"

Ben shrugged. "Me and my sister, Cass, have one. Every year on our birthday a new charm comes in the post. Mom says it's from our dad but he left before we were born, so I don't really know."

Ilana held in her palm the charm of a skeletal hand. "It's cold."

"Yeah, that one's always cold."

Ilana frowned as she felt a charm of a golden sheep's pelt. "Is this made of sheep's wool?"

"Mhmm," Ben hummed in agreement. "My family is Greek, so my mom is starting to teach us Ancient Greek and she said our dad is Greek too, so that's why some of the charms are to do with the myths."

Ilana looked at him with horrified trepidation as she held another charm in her hand. It showed seven people lined up with determination written on their faces. It was tiny, but indescribably intricate. Cass had once looked at it through a microscope and it had shown every strand of hair on each person's head.

"That was the one we got for our most recent birthday," Ben told her.

Ilana on the other hand seemed to be going pale. "Do you know any of these people?"

"Well, I'm sure that the girl left of centre is our mom," he said, pointing at the girl. "She kinda looks like the few pictures we've got of her as a teenager, just a little more dirty and scruffy."

By this time Ilana looked like she might faint. "Is- is that all?"

"Well, the one in the middle is obviously our dad," he said. "The only photo we've got of him is as a teenager and he matches it directly."

Ilana was so pale and sweaty Ben thought she was going to faint.

"Are you okay?" He asked. "Do you need to be sent home?"

"No-" she started as the bell rang. She shot out of her seat and dashed off down the corridor as fast as she could, leaving all of her stuff all over the table. With a sigh Ben started gathering it up and putting it in her bag.

The twins had to stay at school an hour longer than usual on this particular day, as their mom had a lot of work that she had to complete at the office. So it was twenty minutes later that the two of them were sitting in the classroom finishing their homework while Mr Stuart dozed, that they realised that Ilana hadn't come back for her bag.

They exchanged glances, looked at the line of drool escaping from Mr Stuart's mouth and in silent unison agreed to go look for her. They crept slowly out the classroom and stood in the corridor. It was completely deserted apart from the janitor who was slowly mopping up the floor, leaving soap suds everywhere.

For a while they just wandered around and peaked into empty classrooms until they heard talking from a supplies closet whose door was slightly ajar.

"I've been waiting for ages!" It was Ilana. "What held you up?"

A soft voice said something in a different language. It sounded like Ancient Greek.

"What did they say?" Ilana asked the person. There was a pause as the person said something. "Okay, I'll continue, but what should I do about Simmons? He's been tracking them for a while now, and I'm sure he's figured it out, and he's going to use me to find them-"

"Calm down, child," the person - now revealed to be a man - on the other side told her in English. "You must tell Annabeth. She can easily take him down. What is Simmons?"

"I- I think he's the Amphisbaena, born from Medusa's blood," Ilana answered. "The original."

"That's not good," the man replied.

"But I don't want to tell Annabeth because then it would alert the others to our presence."

"Child, tell her and stay near the children, no matter what. It is what a good protector would do."

"Okay, I've got to go now, they'll get suspicious."

The connection was cut off and Ben and Cass jumped back and charged back to the classroom, waking Mr Stuart up as they sat down and Ilana entered.

"Where have you been young lady?" Mr Stuart asked in his you're-going-to-get-a-detention voice.

"I'm so sorry, sir," Ilana answered. "I was helping the janitor fix the vacuum, but then it didn't work so I had to go down to the basement to find another one."

Ben and Cass glanced at each other. She was lying, obviously.

She sat down, fidgeted awkwardly for a second, before pulling out a book written in Greek.

Is that a coincidence? Cass asked herself. Probably not. Something is definitely going on here.

Of course that was when their mom arrived. Mr Stuart rose respectfully from his seat and shook her hand. Everyone shook their mom's hand, it was just how it worked.

"Ah, Miss Chase-Jackson! Cass and Ben have been absolutely perfectly well-behaved," he told her. That wasn't true, but oh well. Their mom scoured the classroom with her eyes, the way she did whenever she entered a new place, and landed squarely on Ilana, who paled considerably.

"Mr Stuart," Annabeth cordially replied. "That's lovely. Thank you so much for looking after the children." She turned to Ilana. "And what's your name?"

"Ilana Lawn..., Miss," Ilana answered. She seemed to be struggling with the form of address and seemed to desperately want to say something else.

Annabeth nodded in a business-like fashion and straightened up. "Well, Mr Stuart, you seem tired. If you want, I could take Ilana with me so that you don't have to stay here anymore?"

"Well..." he contemplated. "That might be a breach of school policy..."

Annabeth nodded and discreetly snapped her fingers. "You want to go home don't you?"

Ben and Cass both felt a sudden and indescribable longing to go home, before they shook them self out of it.

Mr Stuart creased his eyebrows and nodded in agreement, eyes glazed. "Yes, I do want to go home..." His eyes cleared. "Why, thank you Miss Chase-Jackson, you are a credit to the community." And he walked out.

"What was that mom?" Cass asked. "Are you secretly a Jedi?"

Their mom laughed. "Of course not. Mr Stuart was simply tired from a long day. My car is parked outside, go and find it." She threw them the key. "I'll just help Ilana pack up, okay?"

"I'll help," Ben offered.

Their mom smiled. "Would you? Even when I remind you that it's Monday, and as such I have the new edition of Time Slip." Time Slip was their favourite comic, written by a guy called Malcolm Pace. Their mom loved it perhaps more than they did, and it was guaranteed that she had already read it.

On any other day, this news would have them careening to the car at a hundred miles per hour. Today the two glanced at each other, ran out and swiftly hid behind the door. Cass would angrily call this silent conversation 'twinsense', while Ben would argue that it was probably because of shared experiences.

The door closed. There was a few beats of silence. Then their mom said: "What on earth are you doing here? Why did Chiron send you? What's happening over there?"

Ilana answered with a scared...bleat? "Blaha-haaaa! Hecate's enchantments are failing, the monster knows you're here. It's Mr Simmons."

When their mom spoke next, it was with anger in her voice. "Of course it's Mr Simmons. I've been dispatching the monsters that pose as the English teacher here for ten years. Always the English teacher because that's the only position available. But now he knows for sure there's a demigod child here, he'll be calling for reinforcements!"

Ilana's voice was small. "Oh."

"I estimate we have two days at most before more monsters arrive. Where are you staying?"

"I'm staying with Redwood, just outside town," Ilana answered, and that was interesting because the twins had been living in this town all their life and they'd never heard of anyone called Redwood (apart from the tree).

Their mom was using her strategising voice. "Okay, that's perfect, but be prepared to leave. How much does Chiron know? I can't get any Iris messages through to him."

"He knows I'm here," Ilana replied.

"Right, I've got to get back to Ben and Cass, start preparing to leave, it could be at any time."

The twins listening at the door propelled themselves back and started running down the corridor, pushing open the double doors that led into the car park and jumping into the backseat of their bronze car, the envy of everyone else, and started immediately squabbling over the comic lying in the middle, hoping the argument would cover their breathlessness.

Not twenty seconds later their mom arrived and sat down in the driver's seat, turning around and smiling at her children. "Ready to go?"

"I would be if this prat would give me the comic," Cass answered, hoping her mom would buy it.

Ben stuck out his tongue. "If you snooze, you lose," he answered, happily running his eyes over the first page.

Their mom laughed. "Okay, knock it off. Time to go home. But be aware, there's a really great battle on page three..."

"Lalalalalalalalalalala!" the twins noisily blocked out her voice. "No spoilers!"

Their mom pulled out of the parking lot and drove away home.

—

 **Sorry guys, I fucked up with the code thing. All better?**


	4. Storm

4\. Storm

A/N: I thought the last chapter was too long so I've just split it up into another, not an update, sorry!

—-

Later that evening, their mom had locked herself into her work room and didn't come out, not even for dinner. Zack made them spaghetti bolognese and they ate it in front of the TV with popcorn. watching Marvel's Doctor Strange, an old favourite of theirs.

Zack got up from where he was sitting as the credits rolled. "I'm worried about your mom, what's she doing up there?"

"I dunno, but I'm gonna go upstairs," Ben answered.

"What about the mid and post-credit scenes?" Cass asked. "You love those."

"I'm not in the mood, I'm just going up there."

A look of dawning came across Cass's face. "Yeah, actually now that you say it, I have seen that clip a hundred times at least."

"Okay, but I'm gonna see what's up with your mom," Zack told them as they ran upstairs. Then he turned the movie off and ate the last of the popcorn (who doesn't like popcorn and spaghetti?), before climbing the spiralling glass staircase that led upstairs.

By this time the twins had safely hidden themselves in a cupboard just along from their mom's work room and were waiting impatiently to see how this conversation would pan out.

Zack came upstairs and knocked on her door. "Annabeth!" he called. "It's not healthy to stay in your room all evening! Come downstairs, I've made spaghetti!"

No answer.

Zack tried again. "Come on, you can't hope to work like this. You need a break, however short it may be."

Still no answer.

Zack sighed. "Okay, if you don't want me in your room, fine. The kids are playing somewhere, spaghetti's downstairs, come down and eat when you're ready." Then he left.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Cass commented, but fell silent as their mom emerged from their room, looking ragged and shaken. "Let's just go and watch the post-credits of Doctor Strange, it's more interesting than this."

Ben smiled slightly smugly. "No it's not," he responded, pointing straight at the open door to their mom's room.

"She must be really tired, she always locks her work room," Cass said.

The two of them checked the hallway and tiptoed inside. They'd only been in here a few times before, but it was amazing. There were sketches all over the wall of various houses and buildings, as well as some of weirder things. Ships, temples, things that were floating or impossible by the laws of science.

Peppered around were photos of their mom and her friends when they were younger. A dark-haired girl with spiky hair on one, a burly Chinese boy on another, a blonde boy with a scar on his lip and another blonde with a scar over his eye were just a few scattered around. In some they were on a ship, some they were in the woods or fields or climbing wall...with lava? Okay...

But that was not the most extraordinary thing in the room. Lying on the desk was a torch with white light, shining through a prism and creating a rainbow. And in the rainbow was an image of a white palace with a fire burning in the background.

Ben and Cass inched forwards slowly. Class reached out and touched it. It rippled gently but didn't disappear.

"What is it?" Ben asked. "It's a rainbow, definitely... the white light is being dispersed but-"

"The fire is moving," Cass noticed. "Could it be a recording or a projection-?"

"Look for a projector," Ben suggested. "It would be over here..."

They turned away from the screen and started to search amongst the papers. It must be hidden well and very small...

CRASH!

The two of them whipped around. There was a person in the picture, a teenager of 18 or 19 wearing a blue toga and holding his hand out from where a mug had been. He had black hair and green eyes and was very, very pale.

"Who are you?" Ben asked. "How are you in a rainbow?"

"Ben!" Cass hissed. "Look!" She pointed past the rainbow where on the desk was the gold and bronze framed photo of the very person standing in front of them.

The man went paler. "B- Ben? Cass?"

"How do you know our names?" Cass asked with a false bravado. "How does our mom know you?"

"I- I'm," the man stuttered. "Where's Annabeth?"

"She's eating dinner," Cass answered. "Are you...are you our dad?"

"Come on, talk to us, since you haven't for twelve years!" Ben told him.

The man seemed to be shocked back into his senses and with one movement, slashed straight through his image and disappeared, leaving only a rainbow.

Cass backed away. "Let's go."

Ben joined her. "Agreed."

They ran out of the room and into Cass's, because it was bigger of the two. Cass claimed it was because she was better, but they both knew it was because she was terrified of small spaces.

"You know, we've been doing an awful lot of listening at doors recently," Ben mused in horrified fascination at the conversation they had just had,

"Yup," Cass agreed. "And what have we learned? That everyone is crazy and we are too."

Ben looked at her oddly. "We've learned more than that."

Cass put her head in her hands. "What have we learned? We know Ilana's got horns, our mom is part of this craziness, in two days we're gonna get attacked by monsters, our dad is in contact with mom but hasn't talked to us since the day we were born, quite apart from the fact he looks like only a teenager, so what does that tell us about their relationship, and have I mentioned the monsters? I think I've covered all the essentials, don't you?" she asked, breathing heavily, pupils blown wide and darting around in claustrophobic fear.

"Okay, just breathe, Cass, don't panic-"

"I'm not panicking!"

"Calm down-"

Outside, the wind picked up, her bedroom window flew open and a tree loudly fell to the ground with a carrying crack!

"What was that?" Cass cried out, wind whipping all around her but not touching her at all. "What's happening!?"

"There's a storm!" Ben shouted to her. "Calm down, hold onto something!"

Then it started raining. Fat droplets of water sloshed about everywhere, wetting everything in Cass's room, which just served to make her more panicked. Her eyes started to turn gold, wind picked up her short hair and blew it in her face as she looked around in panic. Footsteps thumped as Zack and their mom came to see what was going on.

"Holy cow!" was Zack's reaction.

Their mom's response to that was a lot calmer. "I tend to avoid holy cows, thank you very much." Then she saw her daughter. "Cass! What's going on, Ben?"

"She panicked!" Ben shouted back. "Then the storm started! Help her!"

Their mom nodded and inhaled deeply. She took a step forwards and as she entered the storm, released the breath, along with a word, softly whispered. "Cassandra." Time slowed around her as she walked towards the girl. "Cassandra. The unheeded prophetess. I'm here for you. Calm down." As their mom reached her, she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her to the ground in a hug. Immediately Cass calmed down, the storm stopped and her face resumed it's original appearance.

"What the hell!" Zack exclaimed.

Annabeth turned to him. "I think you should leave."

"No way, man! I should help you clear up, this room's a mess!"

Annabeth's grey eyes hardened like flint. She snapped her fingers. "You are tired. You are going to leave and go home."

Zack's eyes clouded over. "Yeah, leave and go home." His eyes cleared. "See you later Annabeth, Cass, Ben!" he called happily as he left the room and presumably the whole house.

' _Jedi mind tricks_ ,' Ben mouthed in fascination.

"Ben," his mom called. "Help me get Cass to your bed."

Cass was weak and shaky, tears on her face and limp from exertion. Ben came up by his mom and put his sister's arm over his shoulders and helped to pull her to her feet and stumble into his room, just next door. They lay her down in bed and then sat by her.

"Tell th'story," Cass instructed, slurring her words a bit. "Tell th'best story, 'm favourite."

On another occasion Ben would protest that they'd heard it a million times and request one about Odysseus, but at the moment Cass was the one exhausted and drained, so he made no complaint. Cass loved it because it could be applied to them, but also because it was a modern discovery, not ancient history.

"Okay," their mom agreed. "Let me tell you your favourite story... Remember that this is a sacred story, and so only three copies in the world have been discovered. One on Mount Olympus to be with the gods, one in Delphi protected by the Oracle and one in the catacombs of Rome. The story begins... Once, there lived boy of few years. He lived with his mother in a small house by Olympus. This boy was Perseus. Perseus knew not of his divine origins until he defeated a Fury that was sent after him by Hades. This was when he learned that he was a demigod son of Poseidon.

"Perseus had many adventures after he discovered he was a demigod. He fought beasts, found Zeus's lightning bolt, travelled the Sea of Monsters, held the sky, trekked the labyrinth and defeated the reborn Titan Kronos. He clashed with the Romans, journeyed Tartarus and joined with his friends to defeat Gaia and her Giant children.

"Though these stories are riveting in their own way, none is more so than the story of how he became a god. After the battle in which Gaia was defeated, Perseus and his friends stood before the gods, weary from battle and scarred from the deaths of their friends. As they stood, Zeus, the then king, proclaimed many foolish things, among which that it was all Apollo and Hera's fault, and that the demigods should thank their parents for defeating the Giants.

"In shocked fits of rage, his fellow gods turned against him, led by Aphrodite and backed up by the rest, calling for a king that would rule justly and without fault. Amongst those gathered, one name stood out: Perseus, whose fatal flaw was loyalty and who had turned down godhood for his friends." Here their mom stopped and smiled gently.

"Keep going," Ben prompted, watching as Cass fell into a steadier sleep.

"So Hestia, guardian of the hearth and family," she continued, "stepped up to Perseus, and despite his protesting, blessed him with the aid of all the gods. The assembled demigods ran out to escape the deadly godly auras, but his lover, Annabeth, stayed-"

"'S you," Cass whispered blearily. "Don' stop."

"But in fury, Zeus raised his lightning bolt and struck Hestia down, severely injuring Annabeth who was just behind. Fuelled by sorrow, Perseus fought Zeus, emerging eventually as the victor and dispersing Zeus to the Void, where dwells gods who have faded. But as Zeus drew his last breath, he cursed the new king to the life he had fought against, never to communicate by speech, sight or even written word with his demigod children, lest they suffer the sorrowful life of a hero. So alone his lover and demigod twins waited for twelve years until they could reunite with their father, who would weep every day at the mere thought of never showing his children how much he loved them. Here lies the beginning of the tale of Perseus, King of the Gods, and what he could never have."

Their mom looked up. Cass was fast asleep, but Ben was still awake, despite a tireless compulsion to yawn non-stop. She slowly stood up, placed a kiss on Cass's cheek and motioned for Ben to follow her out of the room.

As the door closed, Ben licked his lips. "Mom-"

"I think there's something you need to tell me," she stated, clearly expecting a response.

"Everything's gone crazy!" Ben exclaimed. "Ilana has horns! And she was talking to someone, and the person was talking another language, and you both said it was something to do with Mr Simmons, and you said you were going to kill him, and now I think about it, we really have had loads of English teachers and they change every few months but nobody noticed, how does that happen? And you know her-"

"I've never met Ilana before in my life," his mom corrected. "And this is all fine, but not what I want. Answer me clearly. Did you go into my work room?"

Ben bowed his head guiltily. "Yes," he confessed.

His mom nodded. "Okay, that's all I wanted. I'm not angry, it was inevitable."

"What was inevitable?"

She smiled. "Don't worry about it. You look tired. I'll tell you in the morning, I promise. For now, just sleep in the guest bedroom, okay?"

Ben nodded sleepily. "I'll hold you to that mom," he said, padding away down the corridor with a yawn.

Annabeth turned away. "The only thing I'm angry about is the fact I didn't start training you for this earlier..."


	5. Monsters

5\. Monsters

Cass woke to silence. She opened her eyes groggily and blinked at the sight of Ben's clean, blue room. She frowned slightly, not remembering anything of last night. She rolled out of bed and trudged downstairs, rubbing her head as she went.

"Hey, kiddo," Zack said, switching off the TV - something about storms in the upper atmosphere going on all week -, pulling out a frying pan from the cupboard and gathering all the ingredients for pancakes. "Looking nasty."

She licked her dry lips. "I can't remember going to bed."

Zack shrugged and smiled good-naturedly. "You must have been overtired. I left too early last night anyway, can't imagine why. Pancakes?"

Cass nodded yes and sat down at the table, just as Ben came into the room.

"Hey," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Strange," she answered. "Is mom still working?"

Ben shrugged and sat heavily down on a chair.

"You okay bro?" Cass asked.

He nodded. "Just worried about you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Me? Who are you and what've you done with my brother?"

The corners of his mouth twitched up. "But seriously, are you alright? You probably don't remember, you had a panic attack last night."

Cass frowned. "I don't remember anything. I usually remember at least a little bit..."

"Cass!" Zack exclaimed. "You had a panic attack last night! Why didn't you tell me?"

She rubbed her head. "I can't remember. Not a thing."

"That's the third time this month," Zack continued. "I think you should consider going on medication-"

"Zack," Cass interrupted. "I've known you for, like, all my life - you're basically a second mom to me - I've never needed medication before, and I'm not starting now, so you can just forget that train of thought."

"Okay, okay, Tiger," Zack said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "Won't mention it again. Wait, why am I the mom?"

Cass giggled. "Don't worry, you're a great mom."

Zack shook his head and rolled his eyes, turning back to his pancakes.

Blissful silence. Most days it was interrupted by arguing or shouting until it either woke their mom up (from where she'd fallen asleep on top of her work) or was so loud she wondered what was going on. Which wasn't often, as she was dead to the world when she was working. Or, more accurately the world was dead to her.

This morning however, when the door slammed open again it revealed Annabeth in the kind of state that showed she'd been up all night working.

"Just in time to take us to school, mom," Cass said.

Her mom nodded weakly and collapsed into a chair, pulling out a notebook and scribbling something down.

"Mom, are you okay?" Ben asked. "You don't look so good."

Annabeth put a hand to her head and scrunched her eyes shut. "Actually, I don't think I'm up to taking you to school today. And Cass really shouldn't be going either."

"If you want I can take Ben to school for you," Zack offered.

"No, that's fine," Annabeth told him. "Besides, I would prefer if he could stay to look after his sister."

She creased her eyebrows and scribbled something else down in her notebook.

"Mom," Ben said. "You said you'd explain to me-"

"Please, Ben, not now," their mom interrupted. "I will talk to you - both of you - about what happened last night, but for the moment let's just enjoy Zack's awesome cooking."

Zack came up to the table and gave them each a plate of pancakes to which they gratefully dug in.

"Whoa, slow down, you'll get indigestion," Zack told them, digging into his own breakfast.

They sat in silence for a while. Then the doorbell rang. Annabeth immediately shot out of her seat and ran to get it.

"It's probably just one of her architecture friends or clients or something," Zack said as his phone rang. "Hang on, let me get this." He walked out the room. "Hey Sophie, how are you-"

The door shut behind him.

There was an awkward silence.

Cass broke it. "So, what's going on that you haven't told me?"

"What are you talking about?" Ben replied nervously.

"I'm not stupid, Ben. You and Mom are keeping something. Is it about last night?"

"Well," Ben started. "Last night, there was a sort of...storm. And it blew in and destroyed your room, but the weird thing was, it didn't even touch you. It just went around."

"Ha, ha, very funny. Now can you get serious please."

"I am serious!"

"A storm destroying the room but not touching me," she parroted. "Sounds very _Harry Potter,_ doesn't it? You know those aren't real, right? It's not like our mom's old life is catching up with her like in the movies. What are you doing- for god's sakes, why are you touching mom's notebook, she'll kill you!"

Ben showed her the page he was looking at, open on the table. He was very white. "You might want to rethink your previous statements."

Cass rolled her eyes, but checked the page anyway. It was a list, written in their mom's scrawny handwriting, the one she used when she was deep in the throes of her work, so it took a few moments to decipher, but as soon as she did, she looked up, horrified, at Ben.

"Why would she make a list like this?" she asked. "Sleeping bags, food, maps, lighter, compass, clothes, a dagger... why would she need all these things? It's not like she's leaving, is it?"

"Okay, Cass, we may need to entertain the possibility that there's something going on, like you said, mom's old life catching up with her."

Cass let out a short, breathy laugh. " _What_ life? I was joking, you know that, don't you? She wasn't, like, a spy, was she? She's just an ordinary single mom who happens to also be an amazing architect, okay!?"

Ben held out his hands soothingly. "Calm down, you don't want another panic attack."

Cass flipped though the notebook and out fell a map of the US and Canada. There was a red line drawn from Alaska down to New York and circled around Manhattan. She tucked the map back in, silently placed it in it's original position and fell back in her chair, feeling a bit faint.

"Okay," she said. "I think we should confront mom on this."

"Yeah," Ben agreed. "I asked her last night, she said she would."

"Last night? After-"

"GUYS!" Zack interrupted, bursting into the room. "I need your help! Tomorrow me and Sophie are gonna trek up the mountain and when we get to the top, I'm gonna propose to her, and I'm kinda freaking out!"

"Why are you freaking out?" Ben asked.

"I mean, what do I wear? Should I get a tux?" he panicked.

Cass raised an eyebrow. "For walking up the mountain?"

"Okay, maybe not a tux, but, like, is a hoodie formal enough? Should we camp overnight? She likes camping. But then will we be able to get to the top in time to set up a fire- carabiners! Will we need carabiners?"

"Why would you need carabiners?"

"If we go for a climb, maybe... but if we go climbing we'll need rope... will it be too heavy?"

"Zack!" Cass interrupted. "Just stick to a hike and camping, okay, she'll love it. She loves camping, and she loves you, and she'd be an idiot to turn you down. Relax."

Zack took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Relaxed, and ready." His eyes shot open. "Oh my god, so not ready! I need to pack. Clean clothes. I can't propose to her smelling like a mountain troll."

"She loves the way you smell when you've been up the mountain," Cass said. "All pine needles and dew. She always talks about it when you're not in the room."

Ben gave her an odd look. "She never said that to me."

"Girl's talk," Cass answered breezily. "Who do you think I complain to about you?"

There was a huge crash from outside and a car siren wailing, followed by hissing and shouting in different languages.

Annabeth came running in, followed by Ilana - presumably the person who had been at the door.

"Gee, mom, is there an angry mob at the door?" Ben joked, listening to the crash.

"In a manner of speaking," Ilana answered, biting her lip. "With the greatest respect, Ms Chase-Jackson, I think you should send your babysitter home. The monsters shouldn't bother him."

"Oh yeah, Zack's gonna propose to Sophie!" Ben told his mom. "Tomorrow."

Annabeth uncharacteristically ignored him. "Ilana, you're right. Zack, we're going on a trip, okay? Please can you put together a bag of food? Things we can easily carry, like you would to go up the mountain."

"Why?" Zack asked. "I thought Cass needed to rest."

"This is more important," Ilana said. "Just do it, okay?"

Zack raised an eyebrow, but complied.

Annabeth took a breath. "Okay. Ben, Cass, come upstairs to Cass's bedroom. It faces the front of the house."

The three followed her up to Cass's still wrecked bedroom - she looked around mournfully at her smashed stuff - and looked out the window. Out on the front drive there seemed to be an enormous angry mob, screaming abuse and slapping an invisible wall that surrounded the house.

"Is that Mr Simmons?" Ben asked. "Why is our English teacher leading an angry mob on our house?"

Ilana sighed. "He's not _actually_ an English teacher."

"I'm gonna remove the Mist, okay?" Annabeth said.

"Mom, it's a clear day, there is no mist," Ben told her.

"There's always Mist," Ilana said cryptically.

"Let me explain," their mom said. "Not mist, Mist with a capital 'm'. It's this sort-of veil, which separates our world from that of the mortals, like Zack."

"So he's a mortal, but you're not," Cass said. "Does that mean you're immortal?"

"I'm only half immortal," Annabeth said. "What we call demigods."

"You're part God!" Cass exclaimed. "You're God's daughter!? Does that mean I'm God's granddaughter?!"

Annabeth rubbed her head. "Hades, it's been too long since I did this explanation..."

"What do you know of the Greek gods?" Ilana asked.

"Like, Zeus and Athena and Aphrodite?" Ben answered.

"Yes, those," Annabeth said. "Well, they were immortal, so they lived forever, right."

"Are you going where I think you're going with this, mom?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "The Greek gods are still alive, and they have children. I'm a daughter of Athena and that mob out there are actually the monsters of legend hellbent on sending me and you two to the Underworld."

Ben was adamant. "But that's our English teacher!"

Annabeth looked out and snapped her fingers. "My friend, Hazel, taught me how to control the Mist. Her patron is Hecate, goddess of magic and the Mist, so she's good with it."

Ben and Cass looked over the mob now, to see Mr Simmons, right at the front, slowly transforming into a hideous lizard hybrid. From normal human shoulders sprouted a snake head in proportion with his body, a sickly green colour accented in yellow. Scales spread down his torso to his lower back where a second green snake head writhed, trying to see straight forwards.

Behind him, the angry mob also started transforming into all kinds of hideous hybrids. Snake people, bull people, more snake people...

"Why don't you come out?" Mr Simmons said.

"Why don't you come out?" Mr Simmons' second snake head echoed closely.

"It'ssss only your innoccccent englisssh teacher," his main head said, closely followed by the second.

"Jesus Christ!" Cass exclaimed.

"Wrong pantheon," Annabeth told him.

Slightly hysterically: "There are more than one!?"

Annabeth nodded. "My own cousin is a son of a Norse god and some of my best friends are Roman, so I'm kinda an expert."

"Mom. Are you serious?" Cass asked, desperately wishing someone would jump out and shout ' _PSYCHE! You fell for it!_ ', and everyone would take off their snake masks and go back to normal. No such luck. Her mom just stood there, staring grimly at her.

"So what do we do?" Ben asked.

Annabeth drew in a breath. "We run. I can't fight all those monsters alone while protecting you. I've figured out a path down to Mt Logan, where the mountain nymphs have promised us asylum. We can rest there and then make our way through Canada until we get to the US. Once we're there, it'll be easy."

"You've really planned this out, haven't you?" Cass said faintly.

"You'd better get packing," Ilana told them. "They won't wait out there forever."

As if on cue, the gathered monsters started pounding at the walls. A cracking sound rang out almost immediately. The monsters cheered. Annabeth winced.

"You were right, Hecate's enchantments are failing," she said. "Those walls should be able to hold back at least a drakon. Ben, Cass, get packing, only essentials. Meet me in the kitchen in fifteen minutes."

The monsters cheered again as something outside snapped.

Annabeth winced. "Make that ten minutes. Quickly, go!"

After a brief second of indecision, the two children split and scampered off to their designated jobs.


	6. Gamma

6\. Gamma

Cass felt like either bursting into tears or throwing up. But hey, being attacked by monsters and finding out your grandmother is a goddess will do that to you. Not to mention that thing with their own dad... whatever that was, she had thought it was a trick.

But now she was less sure. With all the havoc going on seeing their young father in a rainbow was the least of her worries. Sort of. It was hard to explain. Her judgement on weirdness was a bit askew.

Regardless, by the time she picked her way through the mess that was her bedroom, it was already five minutes into the fifteen minute deadline. She muttered expletives under her breath and bent down to poke a pair of sad-looking underwear that was hanging off a piece of splintered branch, wrinkling her nose distastefully and tossing them into the laundry hamper with expert skill.

"Don't let mom hear you," Ben said from the doorway, making her jump. "Moms never like their kids cussing."

Cass turned away and held up a pair of ripped and sodden jeans in front of her face. "Don't you need to be packing?"

"I've already packed," he replied. "Have you not even changed out of the clothes you slept in yet?"

"Well it's a little difficult when my entire wardrobe is smashed into pieces," she scoffed back. "Plus I didn't want to fall onto any of this wood."

Ben nodded and strolled over through the path Cass had already beaten down, kicking away the debris at the side. "Yeah, I thought mom wouldn't let you back into your room, what with all the destruction."

She snorted and turned back to trying to salvage her clothes. "I think she's got something more on her mind."

"Mmhmm," he agreed, glancing at the wreckage. "You know what Cass, I don't think any of this is salvageable, just come grab some of my stuff. It's not like you'll be able to tell the difference anyway."

Cass snorted, gathering in her arms the least ripped and stained of her clothes - especially bras since she doubted her brother would have any of those. "Hah, you're probably right," she replied, "I have about as much dress-sense as a drunk buffalo on an iceberg in the Mediterranean."

Ben smiled wryly. "And the wit of one too. Come on."

They made their way to Ben's room, the persistent banging quieter here, at the back of the house, and he turned away as Cass got changed quickly, their similar sizes not posing any problem at all.

"Decent?" Ben asked.

"Yeah," Cass replied, hurriedly stuffing clothes into a duffel bag and closing it. She stood up straight and turned to Ben. "Thanks, by the way. I really appreciate it."

Ben fiddled with his bracelet awkwardly. "Err, sure, no problem. You know I'll always be here for you, really."

Cass smiled before gesturing Ben to follow her. "Come on butthead, time for less emotion."

"For a second I wondered whether I really knew you but I'm completely assured now."

They pounded down the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time and paused just outside the kitchen, listening to the shrieks of joy from the rabble outside grow louder and louder. They locked eyes for a second and composed themselves to face Zack calmly.

The kitchen door opened and they stepped in to see Zack sitting at the kitchen island chatting to a woman who was neither Ilana, nor their mom. Ben grinned happily and ran up to embrace the woman, who hugged him back with an exclamation of "Ben!", letting her straight brown hair fall over her warm brown eyes.

Cass hung back. In her mind she knew who this was, but it wasn't the brown-haired, brown-eyed version that she assumed Ben still saw. Instead she had a ragged look about her, wild hair and eyes and a semblance of calm that made the whole appearance look fake. In fact it was several seconds before she realised who it was.

"Sophie?" Cass asked hesitantly.

Sophie, for that's who it was, looked up at them. "Cass!" She exclaimed. "How lovely to see you! You've grown a lot since I last saw you. Zack tells me you're top in all your classes and Ben not far behind!"

Cass blinked, slightly unsure. "Well, yeah...but only because Ben has dyslexia."

"Really?" Sophie asked, eyes like lasers or wormholes. "Oh I'm so sorry Benedict."

"How many times have I told you that just Ben is fine?" he replied, grinning. "So good to see you, what are you doing here?"

She smiled lovingly at Zack and from the corner of his eye Ben could see Cass take a step back. "I came to see Zack of course. You being here was just luck. Anyway I hear you're leaving."

"Yeah, apparently," Ben replied. "Did you help make the snacks?"

"Of course I did!" She said. "Do you think you could live without my spicy pesto pasta? Mild for you of course."

Zack laughed joyfully and took Sophie's hand. "Come on Soph."

Sophie closed her eyes and laughed like a running stream. "Of course not, I'm so sorry Cassandra I didn't mean to put you on the spot, just Zack and I were talking about you. Are you leaving?"

Zack laughed and drew Sophie in for a kiss. "Hey, guys, I made your snacks, they're in the dining room."

"Where's mom?" Ben asked. "And Ilana?"

"They're upstairs," Zack answered, "in the work room. Why don't you check there's everything you need or want and we'll wait here."

Ben smiled secretly but tried not to. "Sure thing."

"I'll go," Cass said. "You guys keep making the snacks."

Trying not to look like a spooked horse, she edged out the room, never taking eyes off what should have been Sophie. The door closed behind her and she leant against it, breathing more heavily than usual and squeezing her eyes shut, as if that would change what she just saw.

"Cass?" Her mom came running up. "Cass, look at me, are you alright?"

She nodded shakily. "Not a panic attack, just...I thought I saw something."

Annabeth didn't look convinced.

"Seriously mom, it was just for a second, I thought I saw someone- some _thing_ else, but honestly it's just Sophie."

"Sophie?"

"Yeah, Zack must've let her in the back door, what's wrong?"

Suddenly her mom looked on guard. "Get behind Ilana."

Suddenly scared, she did as she was told. Ilana put a hand on her shoulder and smiled comfortingly, but it didn't reach her eyes.

Annabeth pushed the kitchen door open, slowly. Cass peered over their shoulder, expecting Sophie to be the same warm, cuddly person she'd always known.

The woman's dead eyes, grey, peeling skin and clumps of matted hair suggested otherwise.

"Ben," Annabeth said carefully, slowly stepping into the room. "Step away from...Sophie. You too Zack."

Of course, Zack being Zack immediately thought Annabeth was sick. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I'm not feeling so good," she said, obviously pretending. "I've got a bit of a headache. I think it might be the start of a migraine."

Zack's mind was made. "Hmm. I'll go and get some painkillers, you guys try and convince this lunatic to lie down."

There was an uneasy silence as he left the room.

In that time Ben had slowly edged away from her, clearly sensing something was wrong.

Not far enough.

With a shriek, she lunged out and seized Ben by the shoulder. She tugged him in close, one arm keeping him against her chest, the other resting razor sharp talons against his throat to stop him struggling.

Annabeth held her hands out to show she wasn't armed. "Okay, okay. I'm not armed. I promise. Just...take it easy."

"I could kill him right here." Her voice was gravelly and low. "What would the famous Annabeth Chase do, I wonder, if I killed her child? What would the famous Percy Jackson do, if I killed your child?"

"He would march you down to a special spot in Tartarus himself," Annabeth replied. "And believe me, I would do something much worse."

Sophie, god how could this be _Sophie_ , laughed, though it felt uneasy. "I don't doubt it." There was a crash. "Oh there are my friends. Better hurry up, hero. Or you'll be snake meat."

Her hand tightened around Ben's throat.

Annabeth jerked forwards. "Okay, okay, okay. But, these children haven't done anything yet. They haven't defeated every monster out there. They haven't killed Titans, Giants and Gods. Someone like that would get you far more fame."

"Are you offering yourself, demigod?"

"Yes."

"Mom!"

"Don't," she interrupted Ben.

Sophie smiled sickly and loosened her grip. Annabeth walked towards her slowly. As soon as Sophie threw Ben to the side and lunged for her, she ducked, pulling a dagger out her boot and stabbing her between her ribs.

She dissolved into dust.

Annabeth turned. "Ben!"

She pulled him to his feet and patted him down.

"I'm fine, mom, really." He let out a shaky breath. "You saved my life."

Ilana's hand tightened on Cass's arm. "Are you okay Cass?" She asked.

"No."

"I didn't think so."

"What happened to Sophie?"

"That wasn't Sophie," Annabeth said, helping Ben to his feet. "That was a ghoul taking the shape of Sophie. The real Sophie will probably be in a coma somewhere."

"So she's okay?" Ben asked.

"Yeah, she'll wake up now that the ghoul is dead," Ilana said quietly.

There was a pounding of feet outside the door. "Are you alright?" Zack panted, "I heard a crash. Where's Sophie."

Annabeth smiled and walked up to him. "We're fine, thanks Zack."

He nodded, relieved. "Good. Sorry I couldn't find any aspirin—"

There was a flurry of movement and he fell to the floor. Annabeth stood over him with a wooden pepper shaker in her hand.

"Did you just knock Zack out?" Cass asked, feeling light-headed.

"Why didn't you just Jedi-mind-trick him?" Ben inquired.

She picked up her bag. "If we suddenly just disappear, we can't have Zack blamed for it. It needs to look like he isn't guilty. Let's go."

She strode over to one of the lower cupboards and started emptying pots and pans.

"Mom," Ben said. "Mom why are you going through the cupboards? I thought you said we were leaving."

"We are." She hummed lightly to herself. "Ah, here it is. Ilana, if you would."

Ilana swallowed hard, skittering nervously. She knelt down beside Annabeth and reached down, fumbling in the dark. Something lit up, and a passage opened up.

"No, a secret passage?" Ben said, awed. "That is so cliche."

"Please, you first," Annabeth said, motioning for Ilana to go down.

Ilana bleated - _bleated_? - but took a torch (flashlight?) and went in, the beam of light illuminating a square stone room.

Annabeth reached over for the landline, one of those old ones with the coil connecting it to the circle of numbers, sitting on the kitchen counter. She picked it up, dialling 911.

"Hello," the woman on the phone said.

"Help," she said, doing an excellent job at sounding scared. "Please help, get an ambulance, up at the Chase house, we—"

She dropped the phone, letting it dangle off the counter, and signalled for Ben and Cass to get through the tunnel.

"Ma'am, ma'am? Mrs Chase, can you hear me?" The woman on the phone said, sounding panicked. "Mrs Chase, please respond."

Ben reluctantly clambered down the hole. Cass followed, with the distinct feeling of being kidnapped, sliding down into a dark room. Their mom followed, the stone wall sliding back into place.

Something glowed on the wall. A symbol, like the top left corner of a square, or a jagged 'r'. The Greek letter 'g', gamma.

"Where are we?" Cass asked, scanning the walls with her torch.

Her mom's clicked on, illuminating her face.

They fell ominously onto the far wall, where there was a ledge. They walked up to the ledge. Below, lit dimly by torches, was a mess of sprawling tunnels that seemed to bend and change whenever you looked too closely.

"The labyrinth."

—-

 **Hey, sorry if this is confusing, but I've split the third chapter into two smaller chapters. I'll try not to mess with it any more though.**

 **Please follow and comment with ideas and feedback. I'm English, so that's why there's '(flashlight?)' halfway through.**

 **Star xx**


	7. Labyrinth

Chapter Seven: The Labyrinth

Ben didn't really know what was happening. For the last few days he had felt like the awkward third wheel to his mom and sister, both of whom apparently had powers. Or at least could affect the situation they were in.

His mom had wicked intelligence and obviously knew what was going on, and his sister was definitely the cause of that storm. He wasn't stupid.

Also, she was the one who could see Sophie as she truly was. Their mom lifted the Mist, or whatever, and they could see the hoard of monsters, but to Ben it felt like it had just immediately settled back over his eyes, while Cass' were still open to see the ghoul.

Not even mentioning Ilana, who had just turned up and now they were travelling an underground tunnel from their kitchen with her.

It felt to him like he was just attached to the three of them by a string and was being tugged along behind them with no input on the destination or what was happening.

What he did know was that he would never be normal again.

He looked over. Cass looked faintly terrified. He shot her what he hoped was a reassuring look.

"Mom, can you explain please," he said, plucking up courage. "Do you mean, the Labyrinth, Labyrinth, or just some labyrinth we haven't heard of."

"The Labyrinth, Labyrinth," she answered. "Well, Labyrinth 2.0. 3.0, if you count—. Actually, more than that if you count every time the gods moved—."

She suddenly turned to them, as if sensing their fear, and softened at their scared looks. "Come here."

She bent down and pulled them into a hug, one in each arm, wondering a little if she was this small when she was twelve, and she and Percy travelled alone with Grover to the Underworld.

"Listen," she said, pulling them back, but still holding one hand of each. "There's a lot to explain. You'll be scared, okay, I won't lie, and there will be life-and-death situations, almost on a regular, until we get to Camp.

"But I want you to know, okay, we will protect you with our lives. I promise I'll explain everything, soon, maybe even as we're walking, but our first priority is to get as far as possible towards our destination."

She pulled them in for a hug. "I love you."

They wrapped their arms around her too.

"We love you mom."

She nodded and stood up, expression hardening. "Alright." She pulled a length of string out of her bag.

"No."

She looked over at Ben.

He looked back and forth between her and it. "That's...not...Ariadne's string? The one she gave to Theseus...that helped him navigate the labyrinth?"

"Heh, I wish," she said. "No-one's been able to find it in years. To my knowledge at least. This is just to stop us getting separated."

She tied one end firmly around Ilana's wrist and the other around Ben's, just below his charm bracelet. She cut it with her knife and then repeated, wrapping it just above the one already on Ilana and the other around Cass'. Lastly she did it with herself and placed the excess in her bag.

"Do you see it?" She asked Ilana.

Ilana nodded, looking nervous. "Yeah. Yeah I do."

"Good, because I do not know what I would do if you couldn't see it."

"See what?" Cass asked.

"It's green," Ilana answered. "A green trail of mist leading down the corridor. You won't be able to see it."

She trotted off, presumably following the mist. The others followed behind. The string was long enough to all walk comfortably and still have enough elbow room.

Ben jogged awkwardly up beside his mom. "Umm, where exactly are we going?"

She walked a few paces and casually said. "Canada."

"Canada!" Cass exclaimed. "That's hundreds of miles away, you expect us to walk?"

"Space and time," she replied. "Aren't really the same in the labyrinth. I remember when I was a kid me and your dad fell down an opening into the labyrinth — the old one, I don't even know if it's still active — and we thought we were gone for minutes, but it was hours. We went from Long Island to Texas to Mount St Helen in days. Well, it felt like days. Above ground it was weeks."

"I'm sorry, while you were kids?" Cass asked incredulously.

She smiled. "We were slightly older than you, fourteen maybe? It was ages ago. Then again, for demigods age isn't really a good measurement of skill."

Ben felt light-headed, and judging from his sister's expression she felt the same way.

"Isn't it the morning?" She said off-handedly. "I distinctly remember waking up barely an hour ago."

Ilana chuckled, shifting awkwardly on her feet like she had a limp. "Yeah, you'll get a lot of those moments from now on."

Ben frowned as she started to drag her feet a bit. "Are you okay?"

"Just my shoes rubbing," she said. "It's nothing."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Just take them off."

"The floor is stone," Ben said slowly. "Won't that be painful?"

"Not for her," Annabeth said, tugging at the string so that they came to a halt.

Giving in, Ilana kicked off her shoes. They looked like they were full of something, like hard foam with a hole in the heel. For her...hoof. She had hooves.

"Oh man."

"Yeah," Ilana agreed, looking embarrassed, and ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it down enough to make the small horns visible. Her...hooves skipped nervously, shaking loose her pant leg and revealing closely clipped brown fur.

She threw the shoes in her bag and quickly continued walking, pulling the others along with her, seemingly keen to keep moving and not talk about it.

"Ilana is a satyr," Annabeth explained, since she obviously didn't want to. "Her job is to find demigods and protect them."

"Demigods," Ben said. "Like you."

Their mom nodded. "And you."

"No," Cass replied. "We must be...quarter-gods. You're half god, so we're a quarter god. That's how it works."

"More like three-quarter gods, actually," she said. "Or maybe just half-bloods. Your dad is a god. But he might not have been fully a god at the time. It's all very complicated."

"I see," Cass said, blinking hard. "And do you just happen to have a dagger?"

"It was a gift," Annabeth said, eyes lingering on their bracelets. "Because I lost my old one.

They kept walking for another ten minutes as the information sank in to Ben and Cass. They fell into their own thoughts so deeply that when Ilana abruptly stopped, they walked straight into her back.

The twins awkwardly stepped around her and looked out. They had entered into an enormous high-ceilinged room. Either side was lined with pens, and inside the pens were hundreds of enormous bulls, chained down by their necks, horns and feet. Their eyes were closed, and they were breathing gently.

"I don't remember Daedalus putting bulls in the labyrinth," Ben said. "Except the Minotaur of course." He paled. "Oh god we're not gonna have to fight the Minotaur are we?"

"This isn't Daedalus's labyrinth," Ilana answered, shifting nervously and sniffing the air. "I don't like this."

"Daedalus's labyrinth was destroyed years ago," Annabeth continued. "When he died, it collapsed. At least that's what we thought. It may still be active in some way, but we don't want to risk it."

"The mist goes straight through the pens," Ilana said, obviously scared.

Cass held up her hands. "Wait, hold up. If the labyrinth is destroyed, what are we currently in?"

"Well," Annabeth said, starting to walk through the pens, eying the bulls nervously. "Alaska is known as the land beyond the gods. When the gods moved to America the labyrinth spread under the entire country, including Alaska. Because Alaska is the land beyond the gods, it was never controlled, so when Gaia and the giants rose it was easy for them to poison it for their own needs. That's why the symbol is gamma instead of delta. Only monsters can access it."

"Then why could Ilana get in?"

A bull huffed and shook its enormous horns dangerously close to them, causing Ilana to back away.

"Well, apparently a satyr counts as a monster," she said, laughing nervously. "Or we wouldn't have been able to get in."

She stepped nervously forward, hoofs thumping on the dirt floor, causing little plumes of dust to fan around her ankles. Every time a bull raised it's head or huffed, she shied away, but kept going.

"Ilana?" Ben asked, coming up behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she answered, smiling a small, timid smile.

And wow, she seemed so much younger than she'd ever looked before. It occurred to Ben that she must barely be older than them. And already she was used to seeing monsters and the supernatural.

She must have seen his expression change, because she quickly clarified.

"Satyrs can smell monsters," she said. "Underground, and especially in Alaska, the smell is everywhere. And most monsters enjoy eating satyrs."

"That is messed up," Cass said. "Isn't that cannibalism? If you technically count as a monster too because you were able to get in here?"

Ilana shrugged. "Well, technically your father is your grandmother's cousin, but we don't look too hard at things that are uncomfortable."

The siblings looked at their mother with twin expressions of horror.

"Gods don't have genes!" Their mother said defensively. "So technically we're not related."

Cass shook her head. "Have I said how much I hate this?"

The pens started to become sparser. They came to a large sand ring. Ilana led them around it. Only a few meters after skirting the ring, they came to a stop at a wall.

Ilana led them up to the wall and pressed her head sideways against it, looking at something that must be running perpendicular. "The mist goes straight through this wall," she said, frowning.

"Must be a fake then," Annabeth answered, as if it were the easiest solution in the world.

She stepped up to the wall, ducking under tangled pieces of string, and started tapping rhythmically.

"Try a bit right," Ilana suggested. "That's like, the centre of the trail."

She moved further right, gently probing the cracks and lumps with her fingertips.

She pulled away with a gasp, looking down. The symbol gamma was glowing green on her fingertip, a mirroring symbol just fading from the wall.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" A voice asked.

They turned around. A woman was sauntering between the bull pens. Behind her was another woman, who was dreamily petting one of the bulls, expertly avoiding the horns. A third woman, the speaker, was sitting on a fence, piercing them with a curious gaze.

They were all wearing light coloured dresses, brown hair pulled up and fixed in place with gold pins. Each was wearing a different pastel colour: pink, blue and yellow, and possessed an otherworldly air about them.

At least, that's what Ben thought. The only thing his sister could think was how on earth they were wearing such thin dresses this far underground. It was freezing.

"My name is Annabeth Chase," their mom said confidently. "I ask only that you allow us through your domain safely, and we will not return or cause you any harm."

The one petting the bulls didn't even look up as she scoffed. "Heard that one before."

The bull shook it's head and cowered away.

"Odd group," the one standing up said, placing her hands on her hips. "I thought demigod quests usually only had three members."

"Two of them are obviously twins," the one on the fence commented. "So maybe they are being counted as one?"

"Or maybe the satyr doesn't count."

"Maybe they picked one up along the way."

"Ladies!" Annabeth interrupted. "Perhaps you could introduce yourselves."

"Of course," the one still standing between the rows said. "How rude. My name is Aerope. These are my sisters Clymene and Apemosyne."

Clymene, sitting on the fence, didn't react, but Apemosyne stopped fussing over the bull and turned towards them. Her eyes were milky and unseeing.

Cass leaned over to Ilana. "Is she blind?" She whispered.

Apemosyne's head snapped over to Cass, though her eyes were unfocused. "I am not deaf either," she snapped. "And really, is that any way to speak to royalty. Besides, you can't exactly be blind if you're dead."

"Tell that to the Grey Ladies," Annabeth muttered. "I'm sorry, I haven't brushed up on my mythology for a while, you'll have to be more specific."

"We're the daughters of Catreus, son of Minos," Aerope said with disdain. "I believe you've met our uncle, the Minotaur."

Two disgusted looks once again turned to their mother.

"That's what we thought," Aerope said with good humour.

A loud crying noise carried out across the vast room. Aerope looked over. "Oh, Appy, what's wrong now?"

Apemosyne tilted her head, as if confused, or listening. Her floor-length skirt ruffled. From between her legs a small head poked out, shortly followed by a small, trembling body.

"Mulberry," the woman said gently, picking the snow-white calf up and bringing him to her chest. "Shh, shh, calm down, we have guests."

"Aww, cute," Cass said. "He's like a little, adorable—"

The calf sneezed and it's white coat faded into red.

"—snowflake. Huh."

It sneezed again, and black spots appeared.

Ben wondered if it was sick, but felt it rude to ask.

"My name is Annabeth Chase," their mom repeated. "This is Ilana, Ben and Cass. We mean you no harm"

"Pleasure to meet you. Please, come sit," Aerope invited, gesturing them to follow her to a small antechamber, four low couches arranged over two of the walls, and a large desk and bookcase over a third.

The three sisters draped themselves comfortably over a couch each. Ben, Cass, their mom and Ilana awkwardly squeezed themselves onto the last one.

"So you're trying to navigate the labyrinth," Clymene asked. "Why's that."

"We need to get to New York," Annabeth answered. "It's no longer safe here."

"It was never safe here," Clymene said. "If you were never bothered, it's because the monsters were too scared."

"Beaten into submission," Apemosyne commented sadly. "Gaia and Kronos scattered. The gods have won. Time to hide."

"I am curious how you're navigating though," Aerope said, ignoring her sister. "Even we can't navigate this blasted maze. When we escaped Asphodel and pulled Althy and father out of punishment, Gaia was quite happy to give us our own domain and allowed us freedom."

Clymene shuffled down more comfortably. "Of course she's gone so now we're stuck here."

The small calf lowed gently and buried it's head in Apemosyne's shoulder. It was almost entirely black now.

"Mulberry," Ben said off-handedly. "Like the fruit."

Aerope seemed impressed. "Indeed. Our grandfather did love his cattle. The Cretan Bull is our main breeding stud, and this little guy is blessed by the Oracle of Delphi."

"So are we allowed to pass through?" Annabeth asked.

"Hmm," Clymene hummed, unsatisfied. An idea seemed to come to her. She whispered it to her sister. Aerope's eyes lit up.

"We'd be happy to," she said. "For one favour."

"And that is?" Annabeth asked, resigned.

"One of our cattle escaped. He's really quite valuable to us, but we can't go find him because otherwise we'd get lost. And really it's better not to walk in on the drakons when they're sleeping."

"...Fine," Annabeth said, resigned. "We'll do it."

"Clymene will come with you. As protection."

"Fine."

"One more thing," she added. "Someone has to stay here. As insurance."

"I need to navigate, so not me," Ilana said. "Annabeth is most experienced, so she should probably come."

"I'll stay," Ben volunteered. "Cass is cleverer and can see through the mist. It's not that bad."

"Leave you alone to find bulls!?" Cass exclaimed. "An enormous prize bull. I'd rather stay here and safe, thank you very much, you can go find it."

"Absolutely not," their mom interrupted. "Both of you are staying. You will stick together, and neither of you will come and hunt this wild creature with me and Ilana, is that understood?"

"Yes, mom," they answered in unison.

"Oh! Is she your mother?" Aerope asked. "How cute. Don't worry, we'll take good care of them, won't we Appy."

Apemosyne had a strange look in her eye, but her sister either didn't notice, or ignored it.

"Oh! You guys can make your decisions. I'll go cook some dinner." She grinned like a shark. "It's steak."

Her sisters gracefully got up and followed her out the room, Mulberry tripping over as he too trailed after them.

Annabeth turned to her children. "Ben, Cass... Look after each other. I refuse to let you come with us. Stay safe."

She reached int her bag and pulled out a bronze knife, handing it to Cass, who held it awkwardly. Ben looked over her shoulder, and took it from her, to her relief.

"What's this for?" he asked.

"Just in case," Annabeth replied. She gave them another hug. "I love you."

"We love you too," Ben said.

—

 **Heya, sorry this took a while, hopefully the next chapter will come out relatively soon (I say relatively), thanks to everyone who reads this, and to everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited! You guys are the best!**

 **With thanks,**

 **Star xx**


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